The Hunger Games
by: Chua Hui Xian(1O)
Ashley Chan (1O)
**SPOILERS INCLUDED**
Ashley Chan (1O)
**SPOILERS INCLUDED**
The Hunger Games takes place in a nation known as Panem after the destruction of North America. Panem consists of a Capitol, which is in control of twelve poorer districts surrounding it.
To punish the districts for a previous rebellion against the Capitol in which District 13 was supposedly destroyed, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each district are selected annually by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games, an event in which the participants (called “tributes”) must fight to the death until only one remains. The victor goes home to wealth and fame. Each citizen is required to watch the Games until their conclusion. The story is about 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, a girl from District 12 who volunteers for the 74th annual Hunger Games in place of her younger sister, Prim. Also chosen from District 12 is Peeta Mellark, the baker’s son whose generosity once saved Katniss and her family from
starvation. Katniss finds herself being prepped to appeal to the viewer, as her success is dependent on
whether or not she is liked by viewers, whether she can find “sponsors” to assist her in the arena (by sending things such as food, medicine etc.), and if she can convince the viewers of feelings she may or may not actually have towards her fellow tribute, Peeta (a ploy to up her popularity levels).
The government in this novel is controlling and oppressive, using the Games to subdue the citizens of the twelve districts. By making their children fight to the death while they watch on helplessly, they are not only injecting fear into the citizens and ensuring that no one will have the desire to spark a rebellion, but also providing entertainment for the citizens of the wealthy Capitol.
The novel explores themes that are relevant in today’s world: themes such as freedom, the power of the media, and government interference in our daily lives. In a world where people enjoy reality shows that create entertainment out of people’s trials and tribulations, the premise of this book is actually not that absurd.
The narrative is fast-paced and filled with suspense and action. The ending offers an unexpected twist which no one will predict, and also woefully incomplete and unsatisfying. However, the good news is that the book is the first of a trilogy, and there are two books that come after this one: Catching Fire and Mockingjay.
Overall, the book is an amazing read, with a wonderful narrative, touching storyline and likeable characters. So what are you waiting for? Let the games begin! And may the odds be ever in your favour!
LJ Smith – Night World
The Night World is the darkest society you can delve into – made up of vampires, werewolves, witches and shapeshifters, it is difficult to imagine how so many fantasy characters managed to blend in with the humans and stay
hidden under the radar. But in LJ Smith’s book, they did; with the exception of ten individuals.
These ten individuals have done a deed that has broken all the other laws;that is, to fall in love with a human. LJ Smith tells of these passionate, life-altering stories in ten separate books, all with an otherworldly storyline, all
portraying the sweet display of romance; to even be able to craft out so many distinctive personalities is, in fact, a feat in itself for LJ Smith.
Ultimately, all these characters are weaved together in a fate that is tied in by the Soulmate Principle.
“The whole Night World series is based on the soulmate principle. This is the idea that for everyone in the world, there is a soulmate. You don't have to look like your soulmate, act like them, be the same age as them; heck, you don't even have to like them, but from the moment you meet them, you know
that you'll never be completely happy without them. The thing is; the people in these books who fall in love are not only human, they're not only vampire, or witch, werewolf or even shapeshifter. Nope; these couples are from both the Day World and the Night World, and the Night World only holds one punishment for such an act; Death...”
The plot grows thicker as a new theory is introduced into the series – the prophecy of the four Wild Powers.
One from the land of kings long forgotten;
One from the hearth which still holds the spark;
One from the Day World where two eyes are watching;
One from the twilight to be one with the dark.
And their destiny is revealed…
Four to stand between the light and the shadow,
Four of blue fire, power in their blood.
Born in the year of the blind maiden's vision;
Four less one and darkness triumphs.
The conclusion of this 1990s series however is yet to be published, and the ending continues to be shrouded in mystery.
Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith
Elena and Stefan seemed to be the perfect soul mates. Until Damon touched
something in Elena that changed everything.
A deadly love triangle.
Elena: the golden girl, the leader, the one who can have any boy she wants.
Stefan: brooding and mysterious. He struggles to protect her from the horrors that
haunt his past.
Damon: sexy, dangerous, and driven by an urge for revenge against Stefan, the
brother who betrayed him. Determined to have Elena, he’d kill to possess her and is
he really the man he claims to be?
The Vampire Diaries, a tale of two vampire brothers and the beautiful girl torn
between them, little did she know the deadly consequences of falling in love with
the Salvatore brothers..
The story centers around Elena Gilbert, a high school girl torn between two vampire
brothers, Stefan and Damon Salvatore. Along with this trio, Bonnie, Meredith, Matt
and Caroline, all friends of Elena, appear frequently in this series. With many twists
along the way, this romance/mystery series keeps you on the edge of your seat to find
out what happens next. So, who knows?
reviews done by Sharon Yeo 3M, Aarathi 3O
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Holes
by Louis Sacher
Holes is a fictional novel written by Louis Sachar, revolving around a young teenager named Stanley Yelnats. Stanley is from a family, that has been cursed for generations, supposedly because his Latvian forefather reneged his oath to carry Gypsy Madame Zeroni up a mountain. Wrongly accused of stealing a celebrity’s pair of sneakers, he is sent to Camp Green Lake for behavioral adjustment.
He has to dig a hole every day, 5 feet long and 5 feet deep. (FYI: 1ft is around 30cm). He finds an item that belonged to the legendary Kate Barlow, the Texas Outlaw and gives it to X-Ray, who presents it to the Warden. She starts superwising the digging herself, in hopes of finding the treasure. Stanley soon discovers that he, along with the other boys is being used to find the buried treasure, but he keeps this to himself.
Time passes, and Stanley eventually finds a friend in Zero/Hector, whom he teaches how to read, and in return, Zero helps him dig holes. This makes the other boys jealous and they tease them, leading to a fight. Mr. Pedanski, trying to stop the fight, hurts Zero with his degrading remarks. An angered Zero then hits the counselor’s face with a shovel and flees.
Stanley escapes the camp too and braves the hot dry lake in search of his friend. He finds him at last, surviving on hundred year old preserves found in a stranded boat used by Kate Barlow’s love, Sam, the onion peddler.
Remembering the family story of his great grandfather being robbed by Barlow and surviving in the desert by climbing “God’s thumb”, a mountain seen on the far horizon, they hike towards it in the hopes of finding water. Zero gets sick of the preserves, and has to be carried up the mountain by Stanley. With the last of their strength and enduring all sorts of physical challenges, they reach the high mountain spring and find abundant onion plants that become their food. Here, Stanley hatches a plan to dig up Barlow’s treasure at the camp. After weeks at the spring, they pack up and return to the camp, unseen.
After digging up Stanley’s hole, they find a suitcase. However, before opening it, the Warden and her henchman catch them. They are about to take the find when poisonous lizards, coming from the hole that the kids had dug, crawl over the two. The Warden thinks that the lizards will kill them, but surprisingly, they are left unharmed – thanks to the onions they ate. This continues till daybreak and in the nick of time, Stanley’s lawyer, Ms. Morengo, and the Attorney General of Texas arrive.
Ms. Morengo had finally exonerated Stanley of the crime accused of him and had come to have him released from the camp, but the Warden, eager to take Barlow’s treasure from him, tries to detain him with false arguments. Ms. Morengo, with her legal expertise, sees through her machinations and, together with the Attorney General, place the camp under strict government control freeing the other boys from more digging. Stanley and Zero are finally released and are brought back totheir families.
The suitcase, belonging to Stanley’s great grandfather, contained Barlow’s jewels and financial documents that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ms. Morengo takes care of legalities, after which Stanley and Zero became rich. Unconsiously, Stanley has broken his family’s string of misfortunes, while Zero, with his share, finds his long lost mother.
The way Sachar intertwined three subplots into a single novel is truly commendable. Causative to the main plot, he portrays as predisposing events, the family history of the Yelnats beginning in Latvia and the legend of Kate Barlow, the famous outlaw of Texas.
In the end, fate conspires to resolve it all—the family curse, the mystery of the holes, the drought that destroyed Green Lake, and the legend of Kate Barlow. The great wheel of justice has ground slowly for generations, but now it is about to reveal its verdict. This would certainly be a great read for all those looking for an adventure & mystery, all neatly tied off with a happy ending. So what are you waiting for? Fill in the holes!
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If You Could See Me Now by Cecilia Ahern
By Margie Ng (4I)
From Cecilia Ahern, bestselling author of PS, I Love You comes another romance novel that teachesthe readers of the importance of joy, friendship and love.
After being forced to bring up her baby sister Saoirse while balancing her schoolwork after her free-spirited mother abandons them in search of adventure, Elizabeth Egan grows up to be an uptight, serious and emotionally detached woman who doesn’t know how to take joy in life’s simple things.
After her sister gives birth to her son Luke, Elizabeth is forced abandon her life in New York City to move back to her hometown in Ireland to care for her nephew while her Saoirse continues to leave her life with abandonment.
At the age of six, Luke makes friends with a stranger named Ivan whom Elizabeth can’t see. Initially exasperated with Luke’s imaginary friend, Elizabeth finally plays along with Luke when she learns that imaginary friends normally disappear after three months.
However, little does she know, Elizabeth’s life is going to change after she starts feeling Ivan’s presence around her home and in her office. Though invisible to most people, Ivan is real. She begins to find herself humming a catchy tune that her nephew claimed Ivan taught him, and when a chair in her office spins for no reason, Elizabeth senses a new presence in her life.
When Elizabeth finally manages to see Ivan, she mistakes him for a father of one of Luke’s friends and a friendship is soon formed between the both of them. As the both of them start talking about their lives and dreams, Ivan helps Elizabeth to move on from her past, and encourages her to live life a little. She also learns that “It’s the extras that make life”, and Elizabeth finally realizes that she is who she is today because she has missed much of the extras in her life.
She starts to relinquish the control that she has on her life and finally learns how to let go
- with Ivan’s help of course. Ivan helps to release the inner child within herself through simple activities like dancing in the rain and making daisy chains, and Elizabeth recaptures some of thechildhood that she was forced to give up. She finds herself smiling more, and she actually feels happy for once in her life.
Their friendship soon blossoms into a romance, but, the world that the both of them have created soon comes crashing down around them when Ivan is forced to leave. Elizabeth soon finds out that Ivan is an imaginary friend, and that the world that they have built is just make believe.
With this realization, Elizabeth embarks on a new journey of rediscovering herself, and creates her own version of “the land of Ekam Eveileb” (backwards for Make Believe, if you haven’t figured it out) for any child who needs it.
If You Could See Me Now is a story that we can all learn a lesson from – no matter what happens in life, we will lose sight of ourselves at some point in time, and when this happens, we need to learn how to let go, and rediscover who we are. Take joy in the simple things that life has to offer and always look on the bright side of life, and you will find what you’ve been looking for all your life – yourself.
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Secrets of Successful Teens
By Adam Khoo and Gary Lee
From Adam Khoo, author of the national bestseller, ‘I Am Gifted, So Are You!”, comes another similar inspiring book packed with tips and steps on dealing with the challenges of being a typical hassled teenager. Unlike his previous bestseller which teaches students useful study skills and exam tactics, his new non-fiction assists teens in a more general mode.
“Secrets of Successful Teens” shows the reader how to succeed in school and life. It provides the reader with advice and strategies on how to handle common difficult teen-related situations such as coping with mounting school work, getting along with exasperated parents, making friends, so on so forth. Like Adam’s previous book, it also stresses the importance and usefulness of setting goals, expanding your limits and planning ahead. It encourages the reader to always set high reasonable targets and working. It also offers tips on surmounting procrastination and overcoming laziness.
Some might think that this book is just another average non-fiction about how to be the best you can in life with the same old boring inspirational ideas. However, in my opinion, I found this book to be more reliable than the rest as Adam Khoo used to be a teenager who was always failing his tests, lazing about, and not putting any effort into his school work and therefore, has experienced many common challenges that teenagers face today. Now a millionaire, Adam Khoo runs several businesses and is also the Executive Chairman of Adam Khoo Technologies Group Pte Ltd. Hence, he knows the best ways to succeed in life even if you have failed at first.
I recommend this book to anyone who feels as though their lives are meaningless and is on the verge of giving up. This book is definitely the remedy you need to boost your self-confidence and stand up after you’ve fallen. It definitely opened my eyes and inspired me to make my life better. However, as Adam has stated in this book, a book can’t really change your life, but you can.
By Nurin Nazifa (3I)
Little Vampire Women
By Nithya (2P)
Genre: Vampires, comedy and drama
Authors: Louisa May Alcott and Lynn Messina
VAMPIRES, VAMPIRES, VAMPIRES! They sure seem to be taking the world by storm now. From twilight to vampire diaries, the vampire craze is everywhere. So, its so surprise that our 21st century’s obsession has influenced a timeless classic that was created in the late 60’s.Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy are back once again with well, fangs and immortality. And guess what, they are humanitarians so they don’t drink human blood. (Twilight, anyone?)
Indulge in this vamped up mash up to gain a new perspective (and a good laugh) of this novella even if haven’t read the original yet.
This horrifying — and hilarious — retelling of a timeless American classic will leave you craving the bloodthirsty drama on each and every page.
(P.S-If you do consider little women as one of favourite stories of all time, I suggest that you don’t read it because your blood
On the Street Where You Live
by: Mary Higgins Clark 
In this novel of suspense, a young woman Emily Graham is haunted by two murders that are closely linked, despite the one hundred and ten years that separate them. When Emily's marriage comes to an end, she accepts a job in
Now, more than a century later, as the house is being renovated and the backyard excavated for a pool, the skeleton of a young woman is found and is identified as Martha Lawrence, who disappeared from Spring Lake over four years ago. Within her skeletal hand is the finger bone of another woman with a ring still on it- a Shapeley family heirloom. In seeking to find the link between her family's past and the recent murder, Emily becomes a threat to a very devious killer.
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All Through The Night
All Through The Night
by: Mary Higgins Clark
All through the night is a story that starts off with a young woman who leaves her newborn in a pram hoping that the child would be adopted by nice parents but a thief pushes the pram and takes the baby by accident.
Seven years later, Alvirah and Willy, a couple that won the lottery helps Willy’s sister, a nun who runs an after-school shelter for neighborhood children to prepare for a Christmas pageant. However, the city condemns the building the shelter uses for their own use and a nearby brownstone which the shelter was supposed to move into turns out to have been willed to a young couple who are tenants in the building, Alvirah is skeptical about the will and is determined to prove that the beneficiaries of the will are con artists. This leads to her being involved in the case of the stolen chalice and the child in the pram earlier on.
Overall a good read with two storylines running simultaneously.
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Big Girl by Danielle SteelDone by Margie Ng (3I)
Over the years, Victoria has to put up with her father’s scathing comments about her body and see her academic achievements go unacknowledged. She experiences torturous verbal abuse at the hands of her own parents, going through a vicious cycle of depression and binging on junk food for temporary relief. Resolving to write a new page in her life, Victoria sets her mind on moving away from her parents upon graduating from high school.
She moves to Boston for college before settling in New York City with a job as an English teacher at a prestigious school. Her decision of becoming a teacher further strains the relationship that she has with her parents, and the only connection that she has to them is through her sister, Gracie, who over the years has slowly matured into a beautiful young woman.
Despite the tensions with her parents, Victoria remains close to her sister, whom she loves unconditionally. But, regardless, despite all her achievements, Victoria’s parents still know what to say to cut her and bring her down. She will always be her father’s “big girl”, and her parent’s ultimate failure.
When Gracie announces her engagement to a man narcissistic as her father, Victoria worries about her sister’s happiness, and without anyone by her side, feels like a failure again. However, a chance encounter with a stranger manages to help Victoria restore her self-confidence, and ultimately leads to a final showdown with her parents.
Victoria’s story is something that we can all relate to and learn from – in life there will always be risks and challenges, and it is our choice on whether we want to overcome these challenges, conquer them, and celebrate our victories. In our journey to self-discovery, we must learn how to accept ourselves for who we are, and celebrate it!
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Looking for JJ
Never having been classified as a “misfit” or “failure”, Big Girl by Danielle Steel is a real eye opener to the inner workings of the mind of Victoria Dawson, the only imperfect member of a perfect family.
Daughter of Jim, a former college Golden Boy with good looks and charm, and Christina, a slender dark-haired beauty, Victoria has always felt out of place in her family, having been tagged as disappointing from a young age.
At the age of six, Victoria comes across a picture of Queen Victoria, whom her father says she resembles. Finding the monarch ugly, Victoria finally realizes what she is in her father’s eyes from that day onwards. With the birth of her perfect younger sister Gracie, Victoria feels even more like an outsider than part of the family when her father calls her “our tester cake”.
Over the years, Victoria has to put up with her father’s scathing comments about her body and see her academic achievements go unacknowledged. She experiences torturous verbal abuse at the hands of her own parents, going through a vicious cycle of depression and binging on junk food for temporary relief. Resolving to write a new page in her life, Victoria sets her mind on moving away from her parents upon graduating from high school.
She moves to Boston for college before settling in New York City with a job as an English teacher at a prestigious school. Her decision of becoming a teacher further strains the relationship that she has with her parents, and the only connection that she has to them is through her sister, Gracie, who over the years has slowly matured into a beautiful young woman.
Despite the tensions with her parents, Victoria remains close to her sister, whom she loves unconditionally. But, regardless, despite all her achievements, Victoria’s parents still know what to say to cut her and bring her down. She will always be her father’s “big girl”, and her parent’s ultimate failure.
When Gracie announces her engagement to a man narcissistic as her father, Victoria worries about her sister’s happiness, and without anyone by her side, feels like a failure again. However, a chance encounter with a stranger manages to help Victoria restore her self-confidence, and ultimately leads to a final showdown with her parents.
Victoria’s story is something that we can all relate to and learn from – in life there will always be risks and challenges, and it is our choice on whether we want to overcome these challenges, conquer them, and celebrate our victories. In our journey to self-discovery, we must learn how to accept ourselves for who we are, and celebrate it!
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Looking for JJNithya (2P)
Genre: suspense and mystery
One of the most critically acclaimed novels written by Booktrust Teenage prize winning author Anne Cassidy, looking for JJ revolves around the daily lives’ of three very different people-Alice Tully, Jennifer Jones and Kate Rickman. But, all these women are tied together by one common factor-their troubled and turbulent past. No matter how hard they try to escape from it, all their efforts seem to be in vain. Will they resign to fate or will they be able to lead the normal, peaceful life they have always wanted against all odds?
Anne Cassidy has woven in fragments of their daunting past skillfully at the appropriate parts of the novel to answer our countless questions along the way. Once you have read this book, your perspective on certain issues may change for the better.
Based on the controversial issue of juvenile delinquency and the society’s perception of a person who is now an ex-offender, looking for JJ will surely take you on an emotional rollercoaster ride packed with joy, suspense, mystery, loss, fear, prejudice, anger and a blood curdling truth which you will find absolutely unbelievable and impossible to accept even until the last page.
